Jennifer McGillis

INTRODUCTION

This e-Portfolio (eport) is the culmination of my coursework at San Jose State University (SJSU). Over the course of eight semesters, I took fourteen courses—the required prerequisites, all of the required courses for the school librarian track, and several of the recommended school library related elective courses.

My first class at SJSU was during the summer of 2018—Info 286, Interpersonal Communication. I had not realized when I applied that I could not “officially” begin until the fall semester, so I took Info 286 as an open university student. I am so glad this was my first course at SJSU, as the knowledge I gained was invaluable and helped me with all subsequent courses, particularly during group work. I learned about the importance of “soft skills'' especially body language, active, empathetic listening, and how personality traits shape our actions, thoughts, and biases, as well as our communication preferences. It was also during this course that I learned about the impending eport and how important it was to save all my work.

ORGANIZATION & STRUCTURE

This portfolio is organized using a Google site, and is broken down into three sections:

• Introduction - which is this section

• Competencies - Each of the fourteen competencies, A-H and J-O, have six components:

1. The competency - the competency itself—which library/information skill(s) the particular competency pertains to

2. Introduction - I introduce each competency, relate each one to school librarianship, and outline the concepts that will be used to demonstrate knowledge of the competency

3. Explication - I define and detail each concept, connecting each to the overall competency

4. Evidence - I used between two and four pieces of evidence for each competency, using a combination of SJSU assignments, professional experience, and professional development training to prove my understanding and knowledge of the competency.

5. Conclusion - In each conclusion, I sum up what I have learned about the specific competency, and how I will use that knowledge in a professional capacity, particularly, how I will use that knowledge to educate students.

6. References - Where I placed the citations, in APA format, for all of the books, articles, and other resources I referenced

• Conclusion & Affirmation - In the conclusion portion, I discuss my journey of becoming a school librarian student at SJSU, and my future goals. The affirmation is an attestation that the work included in this e-Portfolio is my own, I have cited all sources of information used throughout the process, and that I will honor the privacy agreement.

The site is laid out with navigation tabs for each of the three sections, set up horizontally, at the top of each page. This introduction is also the landing or home page. The competency tab is a drop down menu with each competency labeled—A-H and J-O, the conclusion and affirmation share the same tab and page.

PROCESS

In preparation for the eport, I saved all of my assignments in several places—email, google drive, and word, the instructions for each assignment, and the syllabus for each course. I made folders in my email for each class, saving all correspondence, completed assignments, and any other course related interactions in the designated folder, including communication with the various groups I participated in. I also saved the notebooks from each course I used to take notes on lectures and other important information. I was very grateful I saved all that I did, as it has been extremely helpful during the entire process, reading my notes, and going back and looking through all my materials to see what the parameters were for each assignment, what my role was in each group project, and what the expected course outcomes were.

As I planned my courses, I used the portfolio tracker provided by SJSU to map the courses to each competency, careful not to leave any gaps. There were a couple of competencies that only had one course attached, while others had several, but in the end, I was able to find more than enough evidence to use for each competency. Initially I intended to do as I had heard others have done—choose which piece of evidence to use for each competency before starting. As I started to sift through everything, I decided that was too daunting a task, that I would rather tackle each competency one at a time, finding the evidence as I went along.

I went through the competencies in order, relying heavily on both Information Services Today and the Portable MLIS, two books edited by former SJSU directors, Sandra Hirsh and Ken Haycock, respectively. I also used the myriad of resources I had amassed during my courses such as lectures, articles, books, and websites. I was continually impressed with how many of my professors, and SJSU ischool professors in general were published, and renowned in the library world.

I decided to create a google site for two reasons. The first being its ease of use, and second, that I would be able to easily save it for future use and reference. I am very proud of the work I have accomplished. I have put a lot of effort and time into this process, and upon reflection, I believe it shows a lot of growth. Although I had worked in a library for nearly twenty years when I began this program, there was so much I didn’t know. I have been fortunate to have had professors who are passionate about the library profession, and challenged me to do better and be better, and gave me many opportunities to learn things I didn’t know I needed to know.

My goal was to write and submit two competencies per week, and have the entire eport submitted by April, 10. As I am writing this, it is April 8, I submitted O, my final comp, this afternoon, and am hopeful now of beating my deadline by a day!